One of the really positive things that is happening in the world of Toronto land use planning is that the minimum scale of development that is permitted as-of-right continues to grow. We've gone from fourplexes to 6-storey apartments, and now we're talking about mid-rise buildings (6-11 storeys) and even some tall buildings (12 storeys or more).
What this ultimately means is being able to build without a rezoning application. That means no site specific negotiation, and no fighting over whether the building should be 32 meters tall or 30.5 meters tall with a 2.4 meter stepback because of shadowing concerns on someone's heritage-designated garden gnome. It means getting under construction sooner.
Here are some of the specific ideas being reviewed:
Expand the number of streets designated as "Avenues" throughout Toronto (Avenues are a defined term and where we have decided that mid-rise buildings should go)
New Official Plan policies that would encourage more mid-rise buildings on Avenues
Eliminate the rear angular plane requirement (currently a mid-rise performance standard); this is expected to produce ~30% more homes in your typical mid-rise development
Increase as-of-right permitted heights to 6-11 storeys (the city estimates that this will unlock ~61,000 additional homes)
Introduce "transition zones" between Avenues and low-rise neighborhoods, which could then accommodate things like low-rise towns and apartments up to 4 storeys (it's worth noting that transition zones were initially part of Toronto's mid-rise performance standards but then got removed for some reason)
This is meaningful progress. Let's enact and keep going.
Pat Hanson of gh3* is absolutely right with her comment, here, about why we are seeing more windowless bedrooms being built in Toronto:
In much the same way, some of Toronto’s development policies encourage windowless bedrooms. “I don’t think it’s driven by cost,” says architect Pat Hanson, a founding principal of gh3* and a member of Waterfront Toronto’s Design Review Panel. “It’s driven a lot by building forms. Where you find a lot of these inboard bedrooms is in the mid-rise type.” The requirements to step back mid-rises on an angular plane, she adds, forces the developers to populate their projects with very deep units.
This condition is being driven by building forms and by overall housing affordability. Here is a post that I wrote on this exact topic back in 2017. The numbers are dated. I cited $857 per square foot as the average price of a downtown Toronto condo. But the forces at work remain the same.
And they are not entirely unique to apartments and condominiums. One of the reasons why many condominiums are becoming long and skinny -- and getting designed with windowless bedrooms -- is the same reason that many cities, like Toronto, have long and skinny single-family lots.
You can certainly find wider lots, but it'll cost you.
You may not have ever used this exact term before, but I'm sure that most of you know what it is. On his blog over the weekend, Witold Rybczynski wrote about a new architectural term he just learned called: "multiple expression." What it refers to is the use of different architectural styles on a long facade in order for the building to appear as if it's multiple smaller ones.
And today, I would say that this is largely viewed as a positive thing. Typically it is done to "break up a massing" or create a "fine-grained retail experience." In fact, you'll find things like this in some design guidelines. Here's one from Toronto's mid-rise performance standards:
This doesn't explicitly stipulate that architects should use "multiple expressions", but it does suggest that long repetitive facades are suboptimal, and that they should be broken up. But Witold's view is the opposite. He argues that this "bespeaks a lack of confidence, a poverty of the imagination." And he gives the example of Park Crescent in London, designed by architect John Nash.
It's long (well over 60m) and it's repetitive:
Perhaps a good counter example to this would be Mirvish Village in Toronto, which was designed by Henriquez Partners and which has been largely celebrated as a way of creating the feeling of fine-grained urbanism in a larger master-planned development. Here it is on Google, still under construction:
So what is it that makes Mirvish Village a generally desirable outcome in today's planning environment, even though I suspect that most people would still appreciate what John Nash did on Park Crescent back in the early 1800s? Are we saying -- with our guidelines -- that we like Park Crescent, but that we shouldn't do that ever again today?
And to what extent do age and architectural style play into these opinions? Are long repetitive facades over 60m acceptable as long as the architectural style is "Regency" and the buildings aren't too tall? Is modernism the problem? Because here's another example from London: The Alexandra and Ainsworth Estate.
Built in the 1970s, it is a Brutalist housing estate with a largely repetitive design, and even a slight curve reminiscent of Park Crescent:
Does this have confidence and imagination? Witold would probably say no.
In the end, I guess the answer is that it all depends. Guidelines are just that -- guides. They are not set in stone rules that must never be broken under any circumstances. That would be to reduce architecture to a strict science, and there's clearly also an art component to building great cities.
"Multiple expression" is usually done to create the feeling of finer-grained urbanism. But sometimes -- if you're old and regal-looking enough -- the opposite can be okay too.